U.S. Pat. No. 8,055,044 B2 describes a system for visualization of blood vessels and bones. One of two data sets, originating from two different radiological methods is processed to generate interim results, yielded by an operation on one of the data sets. The interim results are used to modify the other data set. Different imaging capabilities of the employed radiological methods promote a particular task, e.g. the segmentation of a given type of tissue.
When the combined data of both methods is displayed, clinical users benefit from the complementary information. It is conducted, that only relevant information is presented to the user, as to avoid irrelevant data obscuring any data of interest. Therefore, the data to be displayed is further filtered based on content, e.g. the type of tissue, and on location. Three-dimensional computer tomography and three-dimensional rotational angiography are particularly applicable radiological methods.
U.S. 2009/0123046 A1 describes a system and a method of generating intraoperative three-dimensional image data including the processes of acquiring baseline three-dimensional image data of a region of interest. Non-contrast three-dimensional image data of the region and intra-operative two-dimensional image data of the region are acquired in addition.
The intra-operative two-dimensional image data and the baseline three-dimensional image data are each aligned to the non-contrast three-dimensional image data, whereby a rendering of intra-operative three-dimensional image data results from the alignment of both the baseline three-dimensional and intra-operative two-dimensional image data to the non-contrast three-dimensional image data.
U.S. 2009/093712 A1 describes a method for navigating a catheter with a catheter tip through a blockage region in a vessel, especially a coronary vessel, whereby the catheter is pushed forward under real-time radiological observation. For this purpose, a three-dimensional path through the blockage region is determined by reference to a set of sectional images or a three-dimensional representation of the blockage region, recorded beforehand as part of a preliminary investigation, whereby a data set including the path coordinates is brought into register with the real-time radiological images, and whereby the path or a projection of the path is visualized on a display, overlaid on the real-time radiological images.
An article by Quatember, Bernhard, et al., “Development of an Accurate Method for Motion Analyses of the Heart Wall Based on Medical Imagery”, Computer Aided Systems Theory EUROCAST 2011, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 248-255, (hereinafter “document D1” or “D1”) describes a technique for tracking and analyzing the regional motion of the epicardial surface of the heart throughout the cardiac cycle, based on cardiac CT and biplane cineangiography. The epicardial surface is segmented from 3D CT data. Selected bifurcation points of the epicardial arteries are defined as landmarks. Based on these landmarks, the epicardical surface is registered to a 3D reconstruction of the coronary artery tree made from the biplane cineangiograms. The initial registration is used as a basis for a time series of transformations of the epicardial surface throughout the cardiac cycle.
The recanalization of chronically total occluded, CTO, coronary arteries is one of the most difficult percutaneous interventions, because the course of the occluded part of the vessel is invisible in angiography. The occluded portion being visible in computed tomography angiography, CTA, exams, it has been proposed to extract a complete map of the coronary arteries from the computed tomography, CT, and to present it aligned with the angiography to help planning and navigation in the cath lab.
However, cardiac CTA are only performed at diastole in practice. As a result, the complete coronary map is only available at one heart phase. This is an important limitation for some applications like three-dimensional cardiac road-mapping in the case of CTO.